I had 4 small brain mets in April of 2004, which they treated with stereotactic radiosurgery, which I believe is similar to gamma knife. They put a ring on your head and it's a one-day treatment. I have regular "fusion MRI's" every 3 months (they are smaller slices, so they can find smaller tumors). Up to September of 2004, they were clean and getting almost "normal." But in December of 2004, we were shocked to learn of 3 new tumors. We could have done stereotactic on these, except the smallest one (2-3 mm) was in the brain stem, so I'm undergoing WBR for all three. I've already had 2 of my 15 treatments and so far so good. The doctor expects these 3 tumors to disappear so I'm hoping. I also had bone mets, which are now in remission and no other organs are affected. I'm on arimidex, herceptin and zometa (h & Z every 3 weeks). And now the WBR for 13 more treatments.
I would think since you've had brain mets now, you should have these brain MRI's every 3 months because anything that shows up in that time frame would be small and treatable with gamma or stereotactic (unless you're like me and have the darn thing in the brain stem!!).
Take care. And if anyone has good things to email me about WBR, please do so, because I'm nervous about how I'm going to be when I'm done with all this. I'm 38 years old and still work full time as a paralegal (I took medical leave for the WBR and will be back in late Feb.) and hope I'm still able to function OK after WBR. The doctor assures me that I'll be OK, but I'm still nervous about it all. Thanks.
Mary in Cincinnati
smarycinc@aol.com